“Say, rather, he has wasted them; but he will waste many more.”

“My daughter will laugh at him; but then it is I who have had the care of her education.  He will be ashamed when he finds her so well instructed though she is only eight.”

“He will never see her at eight, if I know anything of reckoning; she is fully ten.”

“I think I ought to know the age of my own daughter.  She knows geography, history, languages, and music; she argues correctly, and behaves in a manner which is surprising in so young a child.  All the ladies are in love with her.  I keep her at a school of design all day; she shews a great taste for drawing.  She dines with me on Sundays, and if you would care to come to dinner next Sunday you will confess that I have not exaggerated her capacities.”

It was Monday.  I said nothing, but I thought it strange that she did not seem to consider that I was impatient to see my daughter.  She should have asked me to meet her at supper the following evening.

“You are just in time,” said she, “to witness the last assembly of the year; for in a few weeks all the nobility will leave town in order to pass the summer in the country.  I can’t give you a ticket, as they are only issued to the nobility, but you can come as my friend and keep close to me.  You will see everything.  If I am asked who you are, I will say that you have superintended the education of my son in Paris, and have brought him back to me.”

“You do me too much honour.”

We continued talking till two o’clock in the morning, and she told me all about the suit she had with Sir Frederick Fermer.  He maintained that the house she had built at a cost of ten thousand guineas belonged to him as he had furnished the money.  In equity he was right, but according to English law wrong, for it was she who had paid the workmen, the contractors, and the architect; it was she that had given and received receipts, and signed all documents.  The house, therefore, belonged to her, and Fermer admitted as much; but he claimed the sum he had furnished, and here was the kernel of the whole case, for she had defied him to produce a single acknowledgment of money received.

“I confess,” said this honest woman, “that you have often given me a thousand pounds at a time, but that was a friendly gift, and nothing to be wondered at in a rich Englishman, considering that we were lovers and lived together.”

She had won her suit four times over in two years, but Fermer took advantage of the intricacies of English law to appeal again and again, and now he had gone to the House of Lords, the appeal to which might last fifteen years.

“This suit,” said the honest lady, “dishonours Fermer.”

“I should think it did, but you surely don’t think it honours you.”

“Certainly I do.”

“I don’t quite understand how you make that out.”

“I will explain it all to you.”